Myth one: it is not “right-wing,” contrary to the New York Times, the Guardian, and a thousand other venues. The “right” in Prussia was for the unity of church, state, and business. The “right” in France was for the divine right of the monarchy to rule. The “right” in America is all over the place in U.S. history but hardly consistent for liberty as a first principle of socio-political life. The notion of “anarcho-capitalism” is outside the left-right binary.
Myth two: the “anarcho” part has nothing to do with Antifa or chaos. The use of the term anarchism here means only the abolition of the state and its replacement with property relationships, voluntary action, private law, and contract enforcement as provided by free enterprise. It does not mean lawless; it means law as an extension of human volition and social evolution rather than imposition from above. Order is the daughter of liberty, not the mother, said Proudhon, and anarcho-capitalists would agree.
Myth three: not everyone who proclaims himself to be an “anarcho-capitalist” speaks for the school of thought, not by a long shot. The designation represents a broad ideal with thousands of iterative applications and a huge diversity of views within, same as any other ideological camp. I’m aware of some who favored COVID lockdowns and shot mandates, and others who keep finding ways to justify war and mass redistribution schemes, for example. Thus should Milei not be held responsible for every cockamamie thing ever said or written by a self-described adherent.
The term originates in the work of American economist (and my beloved mentor) Murray Rothbard, who was strongly influenced in his libertarianism by novelist Ayn Rand in the 1950s. (One of Milei’s dogs is named Murray.) But as Rothbard examined Rand’s work closely, he began to develop doubts about the institution Rand insisted was necessary and essential, namely the state itself. If we are to have property rights, why is the state alone permitted to violate them? If we are to have self-ownership, why is the state the only institution allowed to trample on people via conscription, segregation, and otherwise? If we seek peace, why do we want a state to wage war? And so on.
In Rothbard’s view, a consistent rule in society prohibiting aggression against person and property would have to apply also to the state itself, which has been historically the most socially damaging violator of human rights that there is. We tolerate states to defend our rights only to find out that the state is the main threat to our rights. This way of thinking also observes that no one has ever come up with a technology or system that has successfully restrained the state once it is created. (Highly recommended for deeper understanding: Rothbard’s “
Anatomy of the State,” a free download.)
Many anarchists of the socialist left have made similar observations but Rothbard’s spin was one of an analytical prediction concerning what would take the place of the state in its absence. Rothbard said that a society without a state would not be a community governed by perfect sharing of resources and egalitarian sameness, much less some magical elevation beyond human nature, as the left-utopians said. Rather, it would be one of ownership, commerce, the division of labor, investment, private courts, stock markets, private ownership of capital, and all the rest. In other words, a free economy would thrive more than ever without the state, and we would see an ordered liberty brought to its highest possible level of realization.
babylonbee.com
en.wikipedia.org
www.armstrongeconomics.com
